The Co-op and Condo Insider
The Co-op & Condo Insider is your trusted source for expert commentary led by advocates within New York City’s co-op and condo world. Each episode offers insights into the challenges, news, and stories that shape a community making up more than 20% of this great city’s residents.
The Co-op and Condo Insider
Curtis Sliwa Commits to the Fight to Keep New York’s Co-ops/Condos Affordable and Alive
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If your building’s budget feels tighter and your block looks rougher, you’re not imagining it. We sit with Curtis Sliwa for a candid tour through New York’s pressure points—subway safety that breaks down between stations, quality-of-life standards slipping block by block, and a regulatory push that could leave co-ops and condos holding the bag. Curtis retraces the Guardian Angels’ roots from a late-night McDonald’s to a global volunteer network, then pivots hard into policy: how to put officers into moving train cars, rebuild effective homeless outreach, and get serious about everyday enforcement that residents actually feel.
Housing takes center stage as we unpack Local Law 97 and the real cost of electrifying older buildings. Curtis makes the case that boards face impossible math without targeted relief, risking maintenance spikes, distressed sales, and cascading devaluation. We also dig into the hidden vacancy problem—from NYCHA units to subsidized apartments and privately mothballed rentals—and why predictable rules, faster turnarounds, and smarter incentives could bring thousands of homes back online. The lithium battery storage boom gets a close look too, with concerns about siting near homes and schools, safety protocols for first responders, and how to balance climate goals with community consent.
Layered through the conversation is a call for transparency and trust: publish the hard numbers, take the tough reports, and stop gaming the stats. Curtis also opens up about radio’s enduring power—especially overnight—and why real debate beats echo chambers if you want a functioning city. If you care about co-op and condo governance, public safety, and practical urban policy, this is a frank, high-signal listen. Subscribe, share with your board or building chat, and leave a review with one change you want City Hall to prioritize next.
Why Co-ops Matter
SPEAKER_01I remember one person got foreclosed in that entire building. It was a 28-story building right next to the Moscow on Third Avenue and 96th Street. It depreciated everybody's value. If somebody wasn't paying the mortgage, it depreciated everybody's value. Everybody was tied into one another. It was synergistic. And so it is a vital place in New York City where people live. They raise their families. They have rules and regulations as to what they will accept, what they won't accept. You have condo boards, you have co-op boards. We should be stimulating that, encouraging that, instead of basically what we're we're starting to see a lot of now absentee landlords, absentee owners who care nothing about their properties, nothing about doing any kind of uh improvements, and are just running running their buildings right into the ground.
Show Setup and Hosts
SPEAKER_03This is the Co-op and Condo Insider, the podcast dedicated to New York's cooperative and condominium communities. This is your trusted source for the latest insights, strategies, and stories shaping the world of shared housing. You will hear from the people who are leaders in this community. Information and insights you will not hear anywhere else. If you want to stay ahead of the curve, you're in the right place.
SPEAKER_02The views and opinions expressed on this program do not necessarily reflect those of the host or any affiliated individuals or organizations.
SPEAKER_00Hello and welcome to the Corp and Condo Insider, where we explore real-world issues facing corp and condo communities across New York City with insight expertise and a healthy dose of straight talk. And I promise you today you're going to get straight talk. I'm your host, Jeffrey Mazel, Corp Attorney and Legal Advisor to the President's Corp and Condo Council. I'm thrilled to be joined by my co-host, Richard Solomon, a seasoned voice in public radio for over 20 years. Richard has taken his listeners around the world to meet experts, newsmakers, and the people making a real difference in our everyday lives. Richard, great to have you on the mic with me today.
Curtis Sliwa Joins
SPEAKER_04It is a pleasure and an honor.
SPEAKER_00And today we have a very special guest, a uh radio personality, a a public servant for uh 40 years. And as of today, uh we're here as a male candidate, uh Curtis Lee. Well, Curtis, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_01Yeah, my pleasure to join all of you.
SPEAKER_00Okay, real honor to have you. Before we get into sort of current issues, um, I I I know personally I I I'm old enough to remember the Guardian Angels. I think when we last met, I told you about whenever we would travel to court, uh to the Bronx or Brooklyn, wherever, we'd always say, get on the train with the with the angels and make sure you sit near them. And we always felt and we thank you for that. So, how did the Guardian Angels come about and what motivated you to create them?
Birth of the Guardian Angels
SPEAKER_01Well, it came about, and we're looking at almost similar times now coming up with the warnings about the draconian fiscal situation that the city is in, that the state is in, that the federal government is saying they're going to withhold funds. Remember back in 1976, there was that famous daily news headline, Gerald Ford, the president, saying drop dead New York. We're not bailing you out. You're not going chapter 11. As a result, an incoming mayor, Ed Koch, had to inherit operating with the financial control board, which was run by Felix Rowatan, representing the bankers' money, and Victor Gottbound, all the pension money from the unions. I got to meet Victor much later in his life, and he explained to me the process. Governor U Kerry had put it forward. That meant Ed Koch had to account for every nickel, diamond, penny he was spending. Oh, such a novel idea. You have to be accountable. In the rest of life, you do. But he had to make draconian cuts into the city budget. He had to lay off teachers, firefighters, social workers, and cops. So what they did is they eliminated the transit police, which was a separate police agency. Back then you had three housing police, transit police, and the NYPD. So there were no uniformed police officers on the subways from 7 p.m. at night to 5 a.m. in the morning, the off-peak hours. And the gangs, which proliferated through the Bronx at that time, you all you got to do if you're listening and watching now and you don't know what I'm talking about, just uh go to the movie The Warriors. It's a cult movie classic, talks about all the gangs in the Bronx. Pretty accurate. And that's the problem we were facing is that gangs would come on the train and pull a Jesse James style holdup. Everybody had to give up their money. Or they might get shot or stabbed or beaten. And there were no cops. So that's when I decided as a night manager of Mickey D's McDonald's on East Fordham in Webster to begin patrolling once we closed the store. So we were called the Burger Boys because it was all my employees. And I kept them on the clock. So Ray Kroc was paying for that. They weren't, they were more mercenaries than Hessians at that time. But once we started officially the Guardian Angels, people started to come into the McDonald's who wanted to join for the right reasons. Not because they were being put on the clock and getting more money, but still risking their life. But now they were going through the training, the vetting process, patrols that were going out to off the vast subway system, and we began protecting people who were in desperate need. And the people loved us. The police hated us because they thought our mere presence would cause their colleagues from ever being hired back from layoffs. Ed Koch hated us, he vilified us. So the first 13 years, I was getting arrested on a monthly basis, lost on Rikers Island. And it wasn't really until Rudy Giuliani became mayor, got our city back on track, saved our city, that he told the police, stop it. No more opposition to the Guardian Angels. This is a great organization, and we haven't had a problem since in it in the New York City. Now we're in 13 countries, 130 cities. So there are people all over the world who do what we do here in New York City: volunteers, same rules and regulations, same method of operation.
The Red Beret Symbol
SPEAKER_00So what is the significance of the iconic red beret and how did it become such a powerful symbol for your movement?
SPEAKER_01Well, when you're in the subways or streets and people who are in need, they know if they see somebody with a red beret coming, it's probably a guardian angel. That's how iconic it's become. And they know we'll risk life life and limb to help them. Now, with so many emotionally disturbed and homeless in the subways, in the parks, in the streets, uh, they come up to me all the time and they recognize me. Oh, the Guardian Angel man. And they see me. Oh, Curtis. Uh, so it is a symbol of hope. Now, I wear it in respect for the six guardian angels who were shot and killed in the line of duty, three dozen who were seriously injured, because of their tremendous heroic sacrifice that they made to protect people, most of whom they didn't even know. And uh, you know, people have grappled with that. Well, why do you wear the beret? Well, I don't always wear the beret. There are some meetings that I attend in running for mayor, especially business groups, certain unions where you have to take your hat off, that I appear without the beret. Just like I see, I take off now and take a beret off now. But for the most part, I wear the beret. By tomorrow, I'll be going to uh Kathy Wiles uh uh uh council of all the big machers in business, and I won't wear the beret. And I tell people if it really is problematic to you, elect me, mayor, and I promise I'll never wear the beret again. I'll put the beret on storage.
SPEAKER_00Well, I I I think if there was a vote on the beret, I think people would want you to keep it on.
SPEAKER_01Well, a lot of the young a lot of the younger people, the millennials, the Gen Zers, they're fascinated by because they didn't grow up in the era of the Guardian Angels. But remember, everything with them is a look, a style, a 30-second video or sound bite. So the beret works in getting their attention because, as you know, with your grandchildren, great-grandchildren, if you don't get their attention within the first 15 seconds, it's over. It's over.
SPEAKER_00So you were trending before there was trending.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Very good. Very good.
SPEAKER_00Feel free to use that.
SPEAKER_01I was giving sound bites out before it became very popular.
SPEAKER_00Yes,
State of Public Safety
SPEAKER_00sir. So, all right, so let's talk about public safety in New York City. I know that's an issue that you're uh certainly familiar with. Um, how do you assess the current state of public safety in New York City?
SPEAKER_01It's all a mirage. Uh, this uh outgoing mayor, thank God the soap opera, the novella is over, uh, continue to tell us it was a perception, our perception that there's crime. Uh, I visited all 350 neighborhoods. I've yet to find anybody who says, oh, I feel safe and secure. It's so much better. Especially if you're a woman or an elderly person, uh, they're under constant assault. Women constantly being perved on, sexually harassed. They've come up with this new term, random attacks. What do you mean, random? They're targeting people. There's nothing random about them. And there are a lot of crimes they don't even bother to record. For instance, the mayor has admitted this publicly. There are 90,000 packages that get stolen each and every day that are being delivered by FedEx, Amazon, USPS, UPS. 90,000 packages a day. Because you have porch pirates who are following the truck in their car or their van, and as soon as they put the packages down on a in a private home or at a place of business, they snatch them up to them in the back of the car. Now, once the assessment, the value of the material stolen gets over $1,000, it's a felony. You know how many arrests they make each day?
SPEAKER_00Let me guess. Let me guess. Let me guess. Zero.
SPEAKER_01If you go into a police precinct and you said, hey, I had two Federal Express packages stolen, I got it on video, uh, who do I give it to? They said, Well, we're not taking any reports on that. Because that would add to the crime stats. So it's all a game about statistics. And instead of dealing with the reality of saying, we got a crime problem because we just don't have enough cops. 32,500 is the staffing level now. We need at least 40,000 cops. So I have a plan to hire 7,000 more cops in the subways. They assign police officers to platforms and near the stairwells, but they never assign them to the moving trains. The cars, they need to be going up and down of a moving train because that's where all the action is. That's where people will report to you. There's a man in that next car there. He's waving a knife. Officer, can you go check that out? And you do it. If you're not on the trains, how many people are going to get off the train at an isolated stop and start looking for a transit police officer? It's not going to happen. Then they have the homeless outreach unit that used to be very effective because they were members of the NYPD, men and women police officers dedicated to helping homeless and emotionally disturbed. They knew the shelters, the operators, the executive directors, they knew the security, they knew the clients. Then De Blasio disbanded when he took a billion dollars out of the police budget, and there's never been anything to replace it. And we see a slew of homeless and emotionally disturbed persons who live in the subways, live in the streets, live in the parks, and there's nothing being done to get them even either into a safe shelter, which there are a few safe shelters, or into a state hospital for those who have serious uh mental uh mental issues to deal with.
SPEAKER_00So besides adding the police, what what sort of policies would you put in place that's different than the current administration?
Quality of Life Enforcement
SPEAKER_01Oh, it's all quality of life. It's things. You go into almost any outer neighborhood. You see 18-wheel tractor trailers parked in the street, RVs parked in the street, people basically doing uh work on their cars as if they were mechanics in the street, and the fluids and all kinds of uh uh items are in the street. These are things that years ago you would have either gotten arrested for, ticketed for, or they would have hauled that vehicle away. They're not doing that now. And the garbage, you have garbage everywhere: rats, graffiti. From the time you walk out of your house or your place of business in some neighborhoods, you just feel like you're being visually assaulted. Your senses are under attack. The smell of urine, the smell of defecation. It's a place that becomes revolting at times, so much so. Uh people plan on leaving. If the interest rates weren't so high, a lot of homeowners would have been out of here already and on their way either to North Carolina, South Carolina, Georgia, Florida, Texas, Tennessee, or parts unknown.
SPEAKER_00So that's so that's uh that's a good segue.
Co-ops, Condos, and Local Law 97
SPEAKER_00So, yeah, we're the co-op condo insider, so of course we're going to talk about co-op and condo housing. What do you see as the importance of co-op and condo housing in shaping neighborhoods and affordability?
SPEAKER_01Well, it's clear it provides ownership, but not at the point where you have to own and operate a whole house. So condos and co-ops are an integral part of the housing situation. So, uh, what does the city council do? They bring a wrecking ball to it by passing law local 97 to deal with greenhouse effects because they don't want you using natural gas and they want you wired up like a Christmas tree so that you're on the grid and everything's electric. The older your building is, the more money it's gonna cost to convert. You don't have enough reserves in the kitty. And so a lot of people are gonna be abandoning their condos and co-ops because they're not getting any assistance from the from the mayor, from the governor, from the city council, from the state legislature. It's almost as if you're being told, look, be happy. You're not paying as much property tax as a homeowner. Be thankful for that. And you're saying, well, wait a second. Ours is a form of affordable housing that people are investing into that just helps develop the equity in the city. And if we start abandoning condos and co-ops and fleeing, like others are planning to do or already have done, uh every time there's an empty co-op or a condo, it it decreases the value of the entire cooperative, an entire condo. I remember when I had a condo when I was married to my wife Mary, who's now married to David Patterson, who's helping to raise my oldest son, Anthony. I remember one person got foreclosed in that entire building. It was a 28-story building right next to the Mosca on 3rd Avenue and 96th Street. It depreciated everybody's value. If somebody wasn't paying the mortgage, it depreciated everybody's value. Everybody was tied into one another. It was synergistic. And so it is a vital place in New York City where people live. They raise their families, they have rules and regulations as to what they will accept, what they won't accept. You have condo boards, you have co-op boards. We should be stimulating that, encouraging that instead of basically uh what we're we're starting to see a lot of now absentee landlords, absentee owners who care nothing about their properties, nothing about doing any kind of uh improvements, and they're just running running their buildings right into the ground.
SPEAKER_00Well, my understanding is there's uh 50 to 100,000 vacant units, rental units in New York City, because landlords can't get the money back if they renovate them, and it's it's easier to keep them offline.
Vacant Apartments and Policy Failures
SPEAKER_01I've tried to uh pin it down, it's about a hundred thousand, and I'll bifurcate it for you. 6,000 empty apartments in NYCHA alone. The New York City Housing Authority project. The mayor has control of that. How could you allow 6,000 apartments to be unoccupied? Then you got about 28,000 rent subsidized apartments that are empty. And that's become a big issue ever since Andrew Cuomo decided to uh cast dispersions against Zoran Mandami and his wife, you know, for having a rent subsidized apartment. Okay, so they're 28,000. And then the mass number of empty apartments are out in the residential areas, especially in Staten Island, the Bronx, Queens, Brooklyn, where not absentee landlords, but landlords who live in the building have opted when somebody dies or somebody leaves, or finally they get a squatter out after a struggle in tenant landlord court that could consume three, four, five years and a lot of money before the marshals come and kick them out, they have decided that if somebody dies, leaves, or you finally evict a squatter not to rent that apartment. And that is an untold number of apartments that, if encouraged, I believe that those landlords would put them back into the marketplace and they could resolve some of the housing issues. But out of fear of an unknown tenant, you know, a tenant from hell, they're deciding to take a loss, even though they're paying more sewage rates, more higher electricity rates, courtesy of Andrew Como when he was governor because he took Indian Point offline. 25% of our power was provided by Indian Point. He never had a replacement. With all those additional expenses, landlords are still opting not to rent these apartments because they'd rather have peace of mind than a little more profit.
SPEAKER_00And to get their money back would take 20 years if they if they improve the apartments.
SPEAKER_01For sure.
SPEAKER_00I was with an old friend of mine over the weekend. He's a guy from Middle Village. I don't know that he barely graduated high school, but he was a contractor, hardworking guy. Woke up at four in the morning and built up a a rental portfolio.
Taxes, Costs, and Youth Frustration
SPEAKER_00He said he's barely breaking even because of all the uh all the all the mandates, all the taxes. The DOB uh is is certainly not user-friendly for landlords and co-op and building owners.
SPEAKER_01No, and the uh property taxes keep going up, uh fees and fines, uh speed cameras, red light cameras, even charge you for a garbage can now, which is unheard of. 50 bucks plus, you got to buy it from a distributor in North Carolina. I want to see that no-bid contract and who's getting the kickbacks. Oh, can I buy the same can at a Home Depot or a mom and pop hardware store? No, you got to buy it from the city. So they basically are picking your pockets from the cradle to the grave and driving you out. So I have a plan that says if you make $65,000 or less, no property tax, because I want you to improve and not to move. We got to cap the property tax. 2%, that's it, like the state. So at the small landlords level, mid-size, and the big developers, we're taxing way too much. Uh corporate taxes, driving companies south of the Mason-Dixon line in droves. We have the income tax, which is driving a lot of the millennials and Gen Zers out, because even though they're making $155,000 after four years of education, two-year graduate degree, they're having to pay back crushing student loans. Then they're having to pay rent and having to still be living in a dormitory with three other people in their apartment, and they're wondering what happened to my American dream. I thought I'd be able to own my home, home of my own, on my car. I can't do anything. And I think that's how Zoran Mandami has tapped into that anger of a millennial generation. My wife is millennial. She's explained this to me. She said, look, if we weren't married, because I went to law school and I'm an e-attorney now, and I'm making good money. You can forget about that. At the beginning of the month, they picked my pockets for the student loan. The rent is too high to pay. I'd probably have to have roommates at the age of 35. The last thing in the world people want is roommates at the age of 35 when they're supposed to have earned what their parents and grandparents said would be a white-collar life. They would never have to do blue-collar work, get their hands dirty, good career, good future, and the American dream they're deprived of. And that's why they're so angry. And that's why Zorhan Mandami is tapped into it and is doing so well with that generation.
SPEAKER_00We have a lot of co-op homeowners and condo homeowners listening to us. What what can what will
Slowing LL97 and Relief Ideas
SPEAKER_00you do? What will Mayor Sleewa do with respect to local law ninety seven that would bring them relief or bring some common sense into the situation?
SPEAKER_01Well, what you can do is uh the mayor has the power of appointing obviously the commissioners of every agency, directors of agencies. You can throw a monkey wrench in and slow everything down. I mean, everything. It can move at a snail's pace. Uh, it would enable court challenges to be conducted, which again, you can tie up uh the city council by reverse suing them and forcing them to acknowledge that look, all of this attempt to get green green energy into the system is going to end up costing people their homes and they're going to leave, and then we're going to have empty co-ops and condos, and what are we going to do with those? So you can make a relative argument, but the thing you could do most, every agency that would oversee this, you slow it down. You basically pull the plug on it, and you make it to a point where it's not going to be enacted. You're going to make it almost impossible to enact, and you're going to basically have a good old-fashioned come to Jesus, come to Hashem meeting with the city council and let them know your idea of clean air, clean water, clean energy is fine. But we're nowhere near that level. You're going to convert from gas to electricity, the older condos and co-ops, the cost will be prohibitive. What about the maintenance fees? In some instances, it may go up by $30,000. Where are these people going to get this money? And if they leave, and then they're no, we're no longer benefiting from whatever taxes they can pay. How are we going to subsidize all of those who can't afford a condo or a co-op and basically live in subsidized housing? So those arguments have to be made. This mayor was so bought out by developers, winded and pocket-lined by developers and realtors, that he never even bothered looking after the interests of what are at least a hundred thousand condo and co-op owners spread out throughout New York City, most of them right there in Queens.
Lithium Battery Warehouses Risks
SPEAKER_00So uh last time we spoke, um, we we briefly discussed the uh the role of the battery farm. Um, I know there's a bunch upstate. In fact, I read somewhere where the chairperson of NYCerta's town that she lives in upstate has banned battery farms. I just felt that to be ironic. What what is you I I know you you you've explored this issue in the five boroughs, and what what are your findings on it?
SPEAKER_01The lithium-ion battery warehouses potentially uh expose uh any neighborhood to a mini Chernobyl, and I'll explain. Originally, Andrew Cornell passed legislation that allowed for them to exist in what was described as only being in industrial areas. The reason that they're being built, and these are huge Tesla batteries from Elon Musk uh uh operation that store energy. And the reason that they need them to store energy is because the governor himself, Andrew Cuomo, took offline Indian Point, the nuclear power plant in the shadow of the Tappensea Bridge. I'm never going to call it the Mario Cuomo Bridge, the Tappensea Bridge that produced 25% of our electrical output. He never got a substitute to replace that. So as a result, a lot of communities have had brownouts and they fear, with all the new technology, especially AI, artificial intelligence, which sucks up an incredible amount of energy, that if they don't start storing energy in these lithium-ware uh ion battery warehouses, we're going to have blackouts. And I respect that. But it's supposed to be in industrial areas. They figured out the way around this is you set up an LLC, it's through Nine Dot, whose international headquarters is right there at J Street Borough Hall. You buy the residential property through an LLC, a lot cheaper than an industrial area, and then they start building them. It could be side by side of a school, side by side of residential buildings. And if there is a fire, and there have been 40 of them to date around the country, uh a huge story was done on 60 minutes. If you if you Google it, you'll see 40 fires. They each took at least five days to burn themselves out because there was no way for the local fire departments to put them out. It created a plume of hydrochloric acid gas that stayed in an eight-square mile radius for a week. By the time you returned, if you had any kind of uh breathing issues or any kind of medical issues, you wouldn't be able to return, or you'd be glowing at night in the dark, and your property assessments would plummet and try to get any uh property insurance, so it would be devastating to the communities. And this is all part of the city of Yes. Once the city of Yes passed City Council, once it was pushed through
Transparency and Drug Policy
SPEAKER_01by Eric Adams, who was being windined and pocket lined by the developers and realtors, boy, it allowed them to pretty much avoid all zoning restrictions. They don't have to, they didn't have to talk to the local city council person and defer to him or her's wishes. And most importantly, they were able to slip it under so that the community board would have no say one way or the other. And that was because of the way the law was originally written in Albany and the law that Andrew Cuomo's governor signed, that opened up the floodgates of what are going to be extraordinarily dangerous lithium-ion battery warehouses in neighborhoods. Long Island has been able to slow it down. Upstate New York has been able to stop them. But in New York City, 38 in Staten Island, 12 in Brooklyn, eight in Queens, four in Man, four in the Bronx, and guess how many in Manhattan, which sucks up most of the uh electricity?
SPEAKER_00Zero.
SPEAKER_01Exactly. Okay, do as I say, but not as I do.
SPEAKER_00Well, we we hear a lot of that in government these days. So uh how do you plan to restore trust between city government and everyday New Yorkers?
SPEAKER_01I think first and foremost, transparency. Uh, you cannot run City Hall like the Wizard of Oz. You know, where basically, trust me, I got your back, but I'm not gonna share with you bad news. You know, good news bears. In in looking at all the information that Eric Adams and his administration share, it's like they're good news bears. They never share bad news, and we can see bad news all around us. Oh, you just opened up a clinic, an injection clinic, where if you go in, nurse Ratchet will actually inject you safely with drugs so that you don't develop hepatitis C or HIV AIDS. Well-intentioned, but it creates a huge problem in the neighborhood because now the drug users are still having to buy their drugs from the drug dealers. We're not giving them free drugs. And that means the drug dealers stand outside like vendors at Yankee Stadium selling cracker jack and popcorn. So you, the junkie, buy the drugs from the drug dealer. And then when it's time for another fix, you go around the neighborhood, you go shoplifting, you're breaking into cars, you're breaking into apartments, anywhere you can get your hands on property that you can resell, and it just creates
Radio’s Future and Icons
SPEAKER_01a tremendous nemesis for the neighborhood. All of that is gonna stop when our mayor, all of it.
SPEAKER_00So, this is the part of our podcast where we we lighten up a little bit. I give Richard uh free reign to ask you uh uh rapid fire fun questions. Richard, you you're up.
SPEAKER_04So I I've been in the radio business for 20 years. I've been on ABC OR like you, and I've been on FM. Where do you see national radio headed in the next 20 years? And where do you see New York radio headed? And will they be on the same projection?
SPEAKER_01Well, uh, the new wave is obviously podcasting. It's not my cup of tea, uh, but that's why you have choices. The more choices, the better. It's like going into a supermarket, you have like 15 choices of mustard, 12 choices of ketchup. Uh, people have a variety of different ways to listen. It's a podcast, which you can choose to listen to at any point, or there's a Live broadcasts, which I prefer in the interaction with callers. So I've done talk radio for 35 years, most of it at WABC, which at times the acronym has stood for always broadcasting Curtis. I've been through waves where they said, oh, talk radio, radio is dead, only to come back another day and be stronger than ever. So I think the medium will survive, but I think a new generation is not going to be as tolerant as the time necessary to listen to be able to sort of enjoy, collect information, and to hear your opinion verified. I want more co-mixing. I want more debate. I want more of the two-sided approach that used to exist that you rarely hear from now. You hear it on podcasts, but you don't really hear it from talk radio. Who are your favorite legendary broadcasters?
SPEAKER_04Like who is in your hall of fame?
SPEAKER_01Oh, without a doubt. The best, the greatest of all time, Bob Grant, the king of Talk Radio. He went through so many different changes. He came in from Los Angeles. He was the protege of Joe Pine, who was fire and brimstone. Joe Pine, who did a nationally syndicated radio show and a nationally syndicated TV show, and smoked cigarettes like there was no tomorrow. Like four packs a day on the stage, died of lung cancer. And I'll never forget my mentor, uh the King of Talk Radio, Bob Grant, who had graduated from the University of Illinois Journalism School. He was the news guy. And about 60 of the people that were involved in the Joe Pine production said, What are we going to do? Bob, you're going to have to become Joe Pine. And Bob said, I've been trained as a journalist not to have an opinion. Well, you better develop an opinion quick because we're all going to be on the unemployment line. And that's how he developed. And he gave you three, four hours of the best talk radio and entertainment because he was entertaining. A lot of the talk radio show hosts sound exactly like a Xerox copy of one another. He
Overnight Radio Intimacy
SPEAKER_01understood if you didn't entertain people, they wouldn't listen to you. So I would say Bob Grant, Long John Nebel, and Candy Jones, who did the overnights at WMCA and then WOR, Glenn Samuels, who is a character, a bad woman who is great on the radio from Woodside Queens. I could go on and on and on and on. You gotta be a character. Nobody just wants to hear milk toast or somebody who's an enigma. They want to know who you are, who your family is. When they know all about you, that's when you know you have a good radio talk show host or hostess.
SPEAKER_04You've been on you've been on so many different time slots, right? You've been on in the early morning, you've been in late at night. Where do you find the intimacy with listeners? Or what's your sweet spot?
SPEAKER_01Overnight radio, theater of the mind. You can paint images, your words can transport people back in time to an age maybe where they were happier, where they had good memories. Remember, you have a lot of older people listening who are shut-ins, who've lost their family and friends, and the radio is their friend, and they know that they can depend that you're gonna be on at 12 midnight to 3-4 in the morning, and you you put them to sleep. You're comforting because you're not only entertaining, you're not only bringing them back in the time machine, but you're tying it into the here and now.
SPEAKER_00Last question.
The Protect the Animals Ballot Line
SPEAKER_00Um, you're running on the Republican line, and you're running on another line. Why don't you explain what the other line is and the reasons for it?
SPEAKER_01The other line is actually my pathway to victory. It's never been tried before. Uh, it's called the uh Protect the Animals Line. My wife Nancy, who's dedicated her life to rescuing cats with a lot of other people out there who are into dog rescues, animal rescues, because they don't believe in uh no-kill. We want no-kill shelters, we want animal abusers in jail. So they'll vote on that line. Because, as you know, most people in our region grew up in democratic households. Most people are registered as Democrats. Some would never vote for a Republican, even if it was a member of their own family. There is just a Maginot line for some. But the fact that I am leading the effort to protect animals, put animal abusers in jail, and the kill shelters. A lot of Democrats, especially women, are saying, thank God I can vote for you on that line without violating my beliefs that I would never vote for a Republican, which was the will of my mom and dad or grandparents.
SPEAKER_00Well, thank you very much for that. Um, Curtis Slava, congratulations. You are now officially a carpentro
Closing Thanks
SPEAKER_00insider. Uh, we want to thank you very much. This has been a fascinating and riveting conversation. And we hope to have you on again real soon. And thank everybody for listening.
SPEAKER_01Oh, my pleasure any time.